An Accomplished Woman (21 page)

‘Yes ... I, of course,
shall not be here then.’

‘When do you leave?’

‘Monday next, all being
well.’ He shook his head. ‘There is a great deal to see to. Especially as I
don’t know precisely when I shall be returning.’

It was no good: her
eyebrow would not be restrained: it would go up. ‘No? I had thought your
campaign planned to the last detail.’

He submitted a short
smile, as if to say he would allow her that. ‘Fortunately my steward is very
capable.’

Lydia finished her wine,
and as he came forward to take her glass she said: ‘I shall not be here either,
by the by.’

‘Indeed?’

‘Indeed.’ She put the
glass into his stiff outstretched hand. ‘Pray don’t drop that, Mr Durrant, it’s
very good crystal. ‘Yes, I am going to accede to Lady Eastmond’s request, and
be Miss Rae’s companion in Bath for the summer. So: perhaps we shall see
something of each other.’

‘It is — possible,’ he
said slowly, as if peering into a deep well of doubt.

‘Depending, of course,
on whether either of us can tolerate a situation so alien to our natures, and
does not come running back home at once.’

‘That I do not
anticipate in my own case. I do not easily give up on a resolve.’

‘No more do I. Do put
the glass down, Mr Durrant, you make a very indifferent waiter. No, I do not
give up easily either, and so we might argue it out until Doomsday. You think I
will fail as a companion to Miss Rae, and I think you will fail in seeking
marriage; and only time will reveal.’

‘Just so,’ he said,
faintly uneasy, ‘and so I would suggest we let the matter rest there.’

‘Well: to return to the
school, then. Would fifty pounds, as a gift, help in its establishment?’

After a moment’s
surprise, he said: ‘It would be useful indeed. But I hope you do not think I
was canvassing for subscriptions: I always intended to bear the whole cost
myself, and—’

‘You may do yet. What I
am proposing, Mr Durrant — as a way of letting the matter rest, comfortably and
finally — is a wager. Fifty pounds on whoever succeeds in Bath.’

He lifted his head.
‘Ah.’

‘That was not quite an
aha, so I will forgive it. Fifty pounds: the loser to donate the money to your
school. This gives the wager a moral cast, and removes avarice from the
equation of motives.’

He studied her:
thoughtful, suspicious, and reluctantly amused.

‘The terms of this wager
are decidedly vague,’ he said, weighing the glass in his hand.

‘A thing can hardly be
decidedly
vague. The essence of vagueness is indecision — oh, very well, don’t glare
at me. Come, the terms are surely fair enough. One hears of gentlemen in the
London gambling-clubs laying bets on which raindrop will reach the sill first,
or whether the maid who brings the candles will be pretty or not. I dare say
your nephew Mr Hanley has known many such.’

‘I dare say he has,’ Mr
Durrant agreed gloomily, ‘and lost a small fortune on them . . . Still, Miss
Templeton, one needs to know what constitutes
success
in this matter.’

‘Think of it the other
way: to decide the wager, it requires only one or other of us to acknowledge
failure. Now this is something we both hate — yet I believe we are both honest
also. When the game is up, you may count upon me to say so; and I trust the
same with you. There is no sadder spectacle, you’ll agree, than a person who
refuses to admit the truth about himself

‘Or herself.’

‘Which is what I meant —
I would say “themself” if grammar would allow me. Pedantry will not divert me, Mr
Durrant: what do you say?’

‘Tell me first: what
made you change your mind? About going to Bath?’

She took the wine-glass
from his hand and set it down on the tray. ‘Caprice, Mr Durrant: sheer womanly
caprice. Does that answer satisfy you?’

‘It must, as I see it is
the only one I shall get. Very well, I accept your wager — subject to one
condition. There must be no interfering with the result.’

‘Interfering — what can
you mean?’

‘I mean that if I were
to make a bet with you on a horserace, I should hope you would not creep round
to the stables and hobble my fancy.’

Lydia suppressed her
laughter. ‘The poetry of your language is overpowering as ever. But you have my
word: if I see you in the Pump Room making strong love to a moon-faced heiress,
I shall not take her aside and whisper slanders about you. I shall let your
recommendations speak for themselves. You being subject to the same conditions,
of course, Mr Durrant. You will not complicate my task by making Miss Rae fall
in love with you, for example.’ He gave her a long hard look; but there was a
thawing in it. ‘Well, it is no worse than betting on raindrops. Your hand on
it, then.’

They shook hands; and in
the breakfast-room Phoebe, looking out, smiled and said to Mrs Paige: ‘I have
heard about their past association — and I do think it is admirable how easy
Miss Templeton and Mr Durrant are with one another.’

 My dear Papa

Never let it be said the
Templetons do not keep their promises — I promised you a letter the moment we
were tolerably settled, and the moment I think is here. The last trunk, after a
curious diversion at Devizes, has rejoined us at last, and is unpacked, and
none the worse for its adventure. Mary Darber has examined the house throughout
for damp, and pronounces herself satisfied. I was sure that as Lady Eastmond’s
careful steward had the choosing of our lodging, there would be no difficulties
in that direction; but Mary suspects all Lady Eastmond’s household, on the
evidence of the maid and manservant who have come from Osterby with us. They
tend to talk privately, and gaze at each other. Mary disapproves of that sort
of thing.

The only truly good
journey, you will agree, is a short one — but ours was as comfortable as a
journey of a hundred and fifty miles may be. To be shut up together in a
carriage for such a time was a good test of how Phoebe and I will rub along —
and the omens are fair. We fell neither to quarrelling nor silence. She is, I
freely confess, a delightful and excellent young woman: too good for me, no
doubt. Which brings me to my other promise
—
that to Lady Eastmond — the
promise to undertake the guidance and protection of her ward
—
the
promise that, dear Papa, you know I
strongly
resisted making
—
and
which I can still hardly believe I am fulfilling at this moment! Do 1 regret
it, you ask — am 1 indeed fully reconciled to it — do I not, you ask, tremble
at the prospect ahead of me? (And do you dislike as much as I do being
impertinently told in a letter that ‘you ask’ something, when you probably do
not ask anything of the kind?)

Well, time must tell as
to the fullness or otherwise of my repentance or vindication — let me say only
that as I sit here quite comfortably situated, and with no great apprehensions
of the morrow or indeed of the eight weeks to follow, it occurs to me that I
have been guilty of the worst sin in my private theology: I have
dramatised
this whole
business to a shocking degree, which you, Papa, have been indulgent enough not
to point out. It is true that the first view of Bath, on our entering the town,
answered all my gloomy expectations, and confirmed all my distasteful memories:
a place of elegant stupidity, resembling nothing so much as a great set of
genteel sentry-boxes, from which so many guards of mediocrity periodically
emerge, to repel anything that does not smack of polite dullness and
self-satisfaction. However, I begin already to bend a little — to mellow —for,
after all, a person has little to complain of, whose sufferings extend only to
the toleration of boredom and insipidity. The house is all one could wish: we
stand directly opposite Sydney Gardens, which makes for a much more agreeable
outlook than those nonsensical crescents and circuses in the upper town, all
staring each other out of countenance like mausoleums squaring up for a fight.
The drawing-room is sufficiently large and airy, and below it is a decent
dining-room, and an arched hall that leads back to what the inhabitants of Bath
are pleased to call a garden
—
meaning a scrubby yard, a piece of grass
the size of a handkerchief, a water-butt, a rat-hole, and a revealing view of
the neighbouring back-premises, all as lop-sided and dingy. I delight in this
absolute admission at Bath that
show
and
front
are all; and
wonder mightily what would happen, if I were to set a corresponding fashion in
dress, and let out a panel in the back of my gown so as to exhibit a patched
old shift behind. — I am so sorely tempted to try it in the Pump Room that I
had better stop thinking of it.

There, I have writ the
dread words
—
the Pump Room, to which no doubt tomorrow, now we are settled, we
shall repair to write our names in the book, and so commence a true Bath
residence of dawdling idiocy. (Forgive me — like indigestion, that came over me
and could not be suppressed.) Phoebe to her credit is very pleased with
everything, but not absurdly so: she has simply a great relish for every sort
of experience, which is not to be disparaged. — And besides that, of course,
she is in the place where she expects to renew her London acquaintance: the two
gentlemen about whom her feelings are so desperately exercised — and again to
her credit, she has refrained from talking about them: she has about her only a
shining
look of anxious anticipation, which only a monster could
reprove. (I have no consciousness of monstrosity
as yet.)
I
do
not expect her suspense will be long maintained. A letter from Lady Eastmond
awaited me on our arrival. In it she remains so insistent that the rent, wages,
victualling &c, of the house be at her charge, that I fear, Papa, there is
nothing you can do: it is all fixed, and I dare say she would have persisted in
her design of paying all my daily expenses also if we had not stood our ground.
— The substance of the letter, however, relates to the Grand Design. The
renewal of Phoebe’s London campaign has been carefully overseen by Lady
Eastmond. The foreign-service gentleman Mr Allardyce, you may remember, resides
here in any case for the summer — his mother lives at Queen Square; and Lady Eastmond
having numerous acquaintance in Bath, has already written to spread the word of
Miss Rae’s arrival, in such a way as must come to Mr Allardyce’s ears — leaving
aside the fact that she solemnly promised him she would come to Bath this
summer, or perish. As for the other gentleman, Mr Beck the scribbler: Lady
Eastmond informs me that he has been peppering Osterby with ardent letters ever
since London — letters that she has prudently intercepted; and while much
deploring their extravagant character, she has maintained what I believe is
called (in Mr Allardyce’s diplomatic terms) an exchange of notes, and so has
alerted him to Phoebe’s presence in Bath from this date, on the understanding
that any renewal of acquaintance must be in circumstances of strictest decorum.

I think she has done
pretty well. — In London both these gentlemen, it seems, exacted positive
promises from Phoebe that they would meet again at Bath: awkward result for a
guardian, from youthful impetuosity! — but Lady Eastmond has turned the matter
to true Bath decorum. Our hall table stands dusted and bare and ready for the
leaving of cards. I would almost be inclined to lay a wager with Phoebe on who
leaves a card first — Mr A or Mr B — though I do not think Phoebe would be
receptive to matters of the heart being treated so. I dare say she is right,
though it is a pity.

— Which reminds me, do
you hear anything from Mr Durrant? His setting out for the west three weeks
ahead of us, and his stated intention of relying on his friend at Clifton to
secure him a Bath lodging, makes me wonder whether he may already be
established here. — I do long to see him trying out his bows in the Pump Room,
and glaring at everyone.

— I have just glanced
back at this letter, and have hit on a curious thing — Mr Allardyce and Mr Beck
I referred to quite unconsciously as Mr A and Mr B. — Now this must be more
than happy accident. It reconciles me quite to my task to know that there is no
greater burden placed upon my judgement than pronouncing for Phoebe on the relative
merits of Mr A and Mr B
—
for I feel myself inserted into the spelling-book
— or even the mathematics-book — if A equals B, &c. (and let us be honest —
in life there is usually not much to choose between A and B) — and so all must
be well.

I look forward, dear
Papa, to seeing you and Heystead again, once my term of servitude is over: but
I am glad in the meantime that Mr Shipley has decided to retire from practice,
and will be keeping you company disgracefully during the summer. — Emma, I know,
will also be much with you, now that Mrs Vawser has decided to return to the
abode of matrimonial bliss.

— Cynical, what do you
mean, sir?

I have decided by the by
that I do not wish to be known as a chaperon to Phoebe: I prefer to be a
‘duenna’. Yes, I know it is the same but consider — does not a duenna sound
just faintly spicy, as if before her descent into mature chaperonage she had
rather a Past?